Syd Barrett

Best remembered as one of the founding members of the group Pink Floyd, Barrett was active as a rock musician for only about seven years before he went into seclusion. His creative legacy and quintessentially English vocal delivery have since proven remarkably influential.

Barrett was born in Cambridge, England, to a well-off middle-class family. He was the youngest of five siblings. His father, Arthur Max Barrett, was a prominent pathologist, and both he and his wife, Winifred, encouraged the young Roger (as he was known then) in his music. His father died when Barrett was 14 years old. He attended the Cambridge County School for Boys, now known as Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge and enrolled in Camberwell art school in South London in 1964 before forming his first band in 1965. Barrett acquired the nickname "Syd" at the age of 15, a reference to an old local Cambridge drummer, Sid Barrett. Syd Barrett changed the spelling in order to differentiate himself from his namesake.